Family struggling to bring home body of woman found dead in Africa

The family of a Brisbane woman who died while volunteering in Africa has no idea what happened to her and are trying to raise enough money to bring her body home.

Bronwyn Lee Fielding was 37 when she was brought into a Ugandan morgue on June 28 by local police.

Bronwyn Fielding's body remains in Mbale morgue.

A post-mortem report identified a blood clot as the cause of her death, however her family, who live in Brisbane, still have no clues as to what happened to the mother-of-three.

The legally-blind woman moved to Mbale, a region of Uganda, several years ago from Brisbane to work with a church organisation to help orphaned children.

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Bronwyn had been working for several years in Uganda.

Her uncle David Pagey said the family first heard about Ms Fielding's death from her partner via the internet on June 29.

Mr Pagey said the man told the family that he had carried her to a hospital where she had died, however hours later when the family asked again what had happened, he allegedly told them another version of events.

"That same afternoon we asked again what happened, we thought it didn't sound right, he said 'Bronwyn was at my house with my 15-year-old daughter...and I called a nurse...and she died at the house'," he said.

"(Her partner) wanted to have her buried within 24 hours and he wanted us to send money immediately over to him, he was asking for quite a considerable amount of money."

Mr Pagey immediately got in contact with Department of Foreign Affairs who confirmed Ms Fielding had died. A post-mortem report indicated police had brought her body into the morgue.

"We still don't really know where she died, we have no knowledge of what was going on," he said.

"All I am aware of is what the embassy in Nairobi is telling me and the information we are getting from her de facto is the opposite from what we are being told by DFAT and the embassy."

For weeks Ms Fielding's family has attempted to contact local police and the morgue where Bronwyn's body has remained a month on from her death.

We still don't even know the full extent of where she was when she died.

David Pagey

"How can you retrieve a body when you can't get even contact the people that are over there to do it, that is my biggest issue," Mr Pagey said.

"DFAT can only do so much but when it comes to a country like Uganda...you can't get through to anyone because the phone lines are so poor.

"The only person I have been able to get a hold of in the past three weeks is the funeral directors in Uganda...they have gone to suss it out to let the mortuary know that we are fully aware of the situation."

Mr Pagey said DFAT informed him police had indicated they were not going to investigate his niece's death, despite the family thinking something may have happened to her.

"I got a phone call from DFAT...saying police had been to the mortuary to find out what the circumstances were...and the police were satisfied with that answer from the mortuary and that was it," he said.

"They (police) were of the understanding that the body isn't to be released until further notice.

"I would love the police to reinvestigate everything that has been going on...when you are told three different things of what has happened...we still don't even know the full extent of where she was when she died.

"It is only from the reports that we have received that we get an idea of what has happened."

Mr Pagey said a Ugandan funeral home have quoted $4156 to have Bronwyn's body cremated and brought back to Australia.

The family has created a GoFundMe campaign to help bring Bronwyn's body back as she did not have health or travel insurance and the family was struggling to raise the funds.

"As a family what we would like to see happen is Bronwyn is cremated so we can bring her ashes back to Australia so her three children have somewhere where they can lay their mum to rest," Mr Pagey said.

"Where they can mourn their mother's loss and somewhere where they know where their mother is instead of in Uganda...with no idea where she is.

"We want to bring this to the public attention...to ask people to make sure you have health insurance or health policy overseas and keep it."